


en hiver

by spqr



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Cozy, Established Relationship, Hurt Bitty, M/M, Ouch!, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 05:33:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12720630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spqr/pseuds/spqr
Summary: Jack grabs all the Red Bull the gas station has and wanders down the food aisle, arms full. He turns the corner, starts scanning the shelves for protein bars, sees a display of Tastycake pies, and sits down hard.(or: Bitty gets hurt in a game, and Jack decides the appropriate response is to drive six hours in the snow)





	en hiver

**Author's Note:**

> needed to get this out of my head

7:41 PM

 

Jack’s blue Falconers fleece looks good on Bitty. It’s too big for him, the collar hanging loose up around his ears. He looks so small in it--Jack wants to pick him up and wrap his arms around him, but Jack’s in Buffalo and Bitty’s in Massachusets and they’re only connected over the video chat window on their phones.

 

“The line’s still fresh, but we’re doin’ good,” Bitty’s saying. “The frogs are findin’ their legs. I don’t know if we’ve got it in us to win this one, but we’re only gettin’ better.”

 

Jack nods, trying to keep his brain in supportive boyfriend mode. It’s tough--it wants to snap back into Samwell men’s hockey captain mode, which wouldn’t be helpful at all because he hasn’t even met this class of tadpoles. “It’s only the opener,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, as long as you play well as a team.”

 

Bitty smiles. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann, I never thought I’d see the day. It _doesn’t_ _matter_ if we win, huh?”

 

“No,” Jack can’t help but smile. “I know you’ll get them there eventually, Bits. You’re a great captain.”

 

Bitty’s smile turns from teasing to pleased, a barely-there flush high on his cheeks. _Merde_ , he’s beautiful, even on a tiny phone screen image. Jack wants to bury his nose in Bitty’s blond curls, like he only ever gets to do when they’re sharing the same bed. He wants to feel the hot warmth of Bitty against him, because this hotel room is cool and distant and his only company is a half-empty suitcase.

 

He never used to feel homesick like this, before Bitty. Well, before Samwell, to be fair, but it’s gotten a hell of a lot worse since Bitty. Even traveling with the Falconers isn’t quite thrilling enough to get rid of that ache.

 

“I don’t know, honey,” Bitty says. He reaches up to rub his eyes, and the big sleeve of Jack’s fleece swallows up his hand. “I don’t have the heart to get them up for five a.m. practice, they’re all a couple pounds heavier than we were when you were here, I keep forgetting to make them eat protein--“

 

“Bits,” Jack stops him. “You’re good to them. You nurture them. They love you.” Bitty hides behind the collar of the Falconer’s fleece. If Jack were there, in person, like he wants to be, he would pull the zipper down and pull Bitty into his lap and kiss his face until he starts smiling again. “Eric,” he says, very seriously, but--

 

“Bitty!” someone shouts, off-screen in the Samwell locker room. Bitty whips around to look. “Coming!” he shouts back, then turns to Jack and says briefly, “Gotta go, honey, call you after the game.”

 

“Good luck,” Jack says, but Bitty’s already hung up.

 

The hotel room is cold and quiet again, quiet enough that if Jack listens hard he can hear Guy snoring in the adjoining suite. He was going to say _Eric, look at me_ , but there wasn’t time. He rolls over and pulls out his laptop to stream the Samwell game, but the hotel’s wifi is twelve bucks an hour, and Bitty is always on him about his worrying too much and micromanaging from hundreds of miles away, so he turns on the TV instead.

 

9:07 PM

 

Jack doesn’t know what time it is when his phone rings. The sound of the TV is still at the edge of his awareness, white noise like rain on a the roof of a car, some French channel he only finds in the really northern American cities. He picks his head up from the pillow, blinks blearily at the bright light of a bad French sitcom, reaches for his phone on the bedside table, and answers in a slack-lipped mumble, “ _Allo_ , babe.”

 

“Flattered,” Dex says, “but taken.”

 

Jack pushes himself all the way up to sit on the edge of the bed. “Dex,” he says. “Sorry. What--how was the game?” He figures that’s why the frog must be calling. It’s why he figured Bitty was calling again, so soon.

 

“Listen, um,” Dex tries. Nothing good ever started with _listen, um_. Something big and ugly turns over in Jack’s stomach, and he’s already reaching for his laptop before Dex manages to get out, “Bitty took a big hit. Like, a we-think-he-made-the-list-of-top-10-worst-hockey-injuries kind of hit.”

 

Jack’s heart evacuates his body. His hands freeze, already halfway through typing in his credit card number for the twelve dollar wifi.

 

Dex keeps talking, but his voice is very far-off. “I called his parents, but they just gave me their health insurance info and said they weren’t coming, but then Lardo called me and told me to call you, and--wait, hold on--“

 

There’s some shuffling around. Jack stares blankly at his computer screen, and thinks really hard about how he doesn’t tell Bitty he loves him enough. Then Nursey’s voice comes over the phone, “Jack, hey. Listen, they took Bitty to the hospital, Ford went with him in the ambulance, me and Dex and Chowder are out of here as soon as the ref approves our forfeit, and Lardo and Shitty are en-route from Boston, but the snow’s slowing them down.”

 

 _Merde_ , Bitty’s with frogs. There’s no one there to take care of him, no one Jack trusts to make responsible grown-up decisions, just frogs.

 

“Jack?” Nursey’s saying. He sounds like he’s been saying it a while. “You still there?”

 

“Yeah,” Jack rasps. “I’m here. I’m about to be en-route, too.”

 

“Aren’t you in Buffalo?” Nursey asks incredulously. “I thought you had a game tomorrow? Look, we’ve got it all under control, Bitty’s probably gonna be fine, I’m calling Ransom next--“

 

“I’m on my way,” Jack says, in his captain voice. “I’ll be there in five hours.”

 

“Five? Isn’t it six--“

 

He hangs up. His fingers have somehow gotten him logged onto the wifi without his brain’s input, and he’s already on ESPN 4, looking for live playback of the Samwell-Quinnipiac game. He doesn’t even have to search through the video--with Samwell forfeited, the commentators are just running replay of the first eight goals of the college men’s hockey season, and--

 

Bitty, getting slammed by two big Quinnipiac players, getting thrown high into the barrier, bouncing hard, and crumpling to the ice, his skates askew and his body still. Jesus Christ, _Bitty._

 

9:13 PM

 

Tater answers the door in a pair of boxers and thick wool socks. He squints at Jack in the light from the hall, and declares, “ _Suka blyad,_ Zimmboni. What is wrong with you?”

 

Jack’s hands are shaking. He can’t stop them. “I need your rental car,” he says, instead of trying. He’s thrown on a puffy coat and a pair of sneakers over the sweatpants and t-shirt he sleeps in, which isn’t helping his crazed late-night look, but _mon dieu_ , he doesn’t care.

 

Tater’s expression looks very much like he’s going to say _no_. Jack may not be great at social cues, but even half out of his mind with the sudden violent rush of anxiety that hit his body less than ten minutes ago--even now, he can read _that_ expression. “You look like you will crash it,” Tater decides. “Why do you need rental car?”

 

“Bitty--“ Jack starts. “Eric, my boyfriend, he’s in the hospital. I need to--“

 

“What are you still doing here?” Tater demands. “Go to him.” Any of Jack’s other teammates would have said something like _you’re in no state to drive,_ and he knows he isn’t, especially not with the wintry mix that’s dumping over the entirety of the northeast right now, but the airport’s closed and Jack is going to get there, so help him.

 

“The rental car,” he says. “Tater, the keys.”

 

Alexei, god bless him, disappears back into his hotel room for a second and then hands over the keys without further discussion, and Jack runs down the hall and hits the elevator button but it’s taking too long so he takes the stairs.

 

9:44 PM

 

The streets of Buffalo are deserted. It’s early, but it’s snowing, the roads blanketed with a thin, soft layer of flurries. Jack is driving less carefully than he should, and he’s going to have to start his breathing exercises because he’s already felt the tires slide out from under him a few times, and he needs to slow down.

 

His phone rings, and he reaches for it, feels the tires slide out again. _“Merde,”_ he says, wrestling with the steering wheel. The phone is answered, but it’s in his lap. He taps the button to put it on speaker. “ _Allo_ ,” he bites.

 

“Jack,” comes Shitty’s voice. “I can feel it in my mustache that you’re doing something dumb.”

 

Jack grits his teeth, and tears out onto an empty, icy freeway. “I’m driving to Samwell,” he says.

 

“Jesus fucking--“ Shitty says. Then, to not-Jack--probably to Lardo, who Jack is willing to bet is driving the car, “I told you the fucking snow wasn’t gonna stop him, _Jesus_ , why’d you let Dex call him--“

 

“I didn’t _let_ Dex do anything,” Lardo snaps. “I _told_ him to call Jack. I thought it would be best to manage the information flow. That sort of shit’s s’posed to make people _more_ reasonable, not--“ Shitty starts talking over her, and Jack just hears something about _stop him_ , and _we’ll have to tie him to a fucking moose to stop him_ , and then he hangs up.

 

The phone rings again. He answers. “Look, you can’t stop me. It’s _Bitty.”_

 

Shitty sighs. “I know,” he says, sounding exhausted already. “Just--Jack, don’t make it _two_ people I love in the hospital tonight, alright? Just--drive five miles over the speed limit. Keep it reasonable.”

 

10:25 PM

 

Some lonely late-night radio host in upstate New York croons _how about something to wake the night shift up_ , and puts on Beyoncé. Jack wouldn’t know it was Beyoncé, except Bitty sings it all the time in the Haus kitchen, hums it in the morning when he’s skating warm-ups, belts it in the shower in Jack’s apartment so loud that it wakes Jack up, makes him smile lazily at the ceiling and get up to go join him.

 

So _Irreplaceable_ plays softly over the radio, flurries hit the windshield of a rented sedan, and Jack’s eyes well with tears. He swipes at them, one-handed, sniffs hard, and speeds up.

 

11:48 PM

 

Necessity dictates he stop at a gas station. It’s the only spot of light for miles, everything around it silent in the snow and the darkness. Jack runs inside to buy out the stock of Red Bull and protein bars.

 

The shopkeeper gives him a smile and a nod in greeting. Jack can’t muster anything in return--he must look like some sort of junkie, haggard and half-dressed, eyes probably bloodshot. He grabs all the Red Bull out of the fridge, and wanders down the food aisle, arms full and feet heavy. He turns the corner, starts scanning the shelves for protein bars, sees a display of Tastycake pies, and sits down hard.

 

The floor isn’t all that welcoming, but his legs just decided not to work anymore. He stares at the pies for a long minute and feels sorry for himself, then he gets his feet back underneath him and goes to the register.

 

“Alright there?” the shopkeeper asks him.

 

Jack nods dumbly--numbly--and manages to say, “Fell. Sorry.”

 

12:08 AM

 

The thing is, Jack thinks as his phone directs him onto an empty eight-lane highway--the thing is, he thinks maybe he was living half a life before Bitty. He knows that’s not fair to the other people he loves, to Shitty and his parents and Ransom and Holster and Lardo, but--he never got out of bed in the morning for _them_.

 

He had to be the best. That’s what got him out of bed in the morning, before Bitty. Needing to prove the world wrong, prove everyone who called him a _robot_ wrong, prove that he could still pick himself up and put one foot in front of the other and keep breathing and do it better than everyone else, to boot. But _Bitty--_ Bitty doesn’t need him to be the best, he doesn’t even need him to play _hockey._ He just needs _him,_ Jack, he doesn’t want anything else from him but _him._

 

Jack would throw everything else away, for Bitty. But Bitty would never ask him to, so it doesn’t matter.

 

1:39 AM

 

The next time Shitty calls, Jack pulls over to the side of the road. If if’s-- _mon dieu_ , if it’s bad news, he’s not going to want to be driving. He holds the phone to his ear, like a lifeline, and says, “Shitty.”

 

“Me and Lardo just got here,” Shitty says. “That wintry mix out there needs a more vicious name.” Jack can hear the beeping and whooshing of hospital machines in the background, and it makes him feel sick. He hates hospitals, even when he’s only hearing them from over a hundred miles away. “Anyway, Bitty’s still out, but they say he’s stable. They won’t tell us anything else, because apparently you’re listed as his next of kin, but--“

 

Jack swallows thickly. “Shitty,” he says.

 

“Yeah, buddy,” Shitty says. “I know. But our Bits is gonna be okay, alright? He, like, _barely_ cracked the top ten worst hockey injuries in history. He’s number ten. A soft nine, at most.”

 

Jack closes his eyes, keels sideways and rests his head on the freezing window. Bitty’s face comes to him with vivid clarity, exactly as it was the first time Jack kissed him, brown eyes wide and fixed on Jack’s face like he was the best thing he’d ever seen. Jack remembers feeling like his whole body was on fire, like he’d finally found the one thing that woke him up louder and more brilliantly than even being on the ice did.

 

 _Merde_ , he wants Bitty with him more than anything. He wants him here, in the backseat, bundled in too many layers and bundled in Jack’s arms and murmuring _, gosh, honey, your hands are freezing_ when Jack slides under all those layers to reach warm, smooth skin. He wants to kiss Bitty’s throat and taste his laugh and fall asleep with Bitty safe and sound in his arms. Instead, he’s got Shitty, saying, “Bitty’s a trooper, Jack.”

 

Jack picks his head up and looks out the windshield at the patch of road illuminated by his headlights. It’s not much--visibility is pretty shit, with the snow coming down like it is, but Jack is Canadian. He can drive through anything.

 

“I know,” he says, breathing for the first time in what feels like ages. “He’s going to be fine, I know. I just need to be there and make sure.”

 

“Yeah, I get it,” Shitty says. Jack knows he really does _get_ _it_ , what with the fact that Shitty and Lardo had to drive in to the hospital _together_ , from wherever they were, _together_. “See you soon, buddy.”

 

Jack’s phone tells him it’s going to take him another three and a half hours to get there. He knows, in some logical last stronghold of his brain, where he stores offenseive and defensive plays, that he’s already driven that long to get where he is now. It doesn’t matter--he resolves to shave at least an hour off that time, pulls away from the shoulder of the winding woodland road he’s on, and sets off again.

 

2:57 AM

 

Jack was okay with living half a life. There are lights from some small town shining weakly through the snow out in front of him on the left, and that’s like how the rest of the world used to be to him, far off and impossible to touch from where he was, insulated in his own cloying feedback loop of anxiety and expectations.

 

He was okay with that, because he thought it was all he was ever going to have. He thought the greatest happiness in his life was going to be holding the Stanley Cup, and then--Bitty showed up with flour in his hair and a determined look on his face and a hockey stick in his hands, and that was that.

 

3:03 AM

 

Bitty’s never going to go through anything alone ever again. Jack’s going to make sure of it. Jack--Jack’s going to marry him. Maybe not right now, but eventually. Soon. He’s going to go out and buy a ring, and, and--

 

He hopes Bitty wants that. _Mon dieu,_ he hopes Bitty wants that. He knows Bitty’s parents are aggressively not on-board, apparently won’t even come to see their son in the hospital, but he doesn’t think it will matter. Bitty will bake the cake and Jack will take dance lessons and Shitty will make the best goddamn best-man toast in history, and Ransom and Holster will fight over who gets to be DJ, and in the middle of it all Jack and Bitty will sneak out to the car, and--

 

3:48 AM

 

The cans of Red Bull are all empty. Jack should demand a sponsorship. He’s tearing across the state of Massachusets, now, his phone navigation turned off, because he knows these roads, even in the snow. He’s going to be there soon. He’s going to be there when Bitty comes to, so he can say _look at me,_ like he should’ve done hours ago, before the game.

 

He’s nearly home. He doesn’t know when he started thinking of Samwell as home, or why he hasn’t stopped, but he can guess, and the answers are _the second he stepped foot in the Haus_ , and _because Bitty’s still here_. Tater’s rental car carries him through campus, and his heart starts to beat faster again, and he pulls into the hospital parking lot, and it jumps to his throat. He spots Shitty’s car, turns off his own engine, and sits for a long minute, his breath hanging in icy clouds in the air in front of him.

 

The second he steps outside, he’s got to be a pillar. The frogs’ old captain, Bitty’s partner, someone who’s got his shit together. So right now, he brings his arm up to his mouth, bites his sleeve, and forces out a scream.

 

3:50 AM

 

It’s not a big hospital. Just big enough to handle students, run STD workups and pump the occasional stomach, as needed. The miniscule waiting room’s just inside the automatic double doors, so the second Jack arrives, he’s mobbed by frogs. Or rather, one very enthusiastic frog. “Oh, wow, Jack,” Chowder says, “you actually came, you’re here--“

 

“Of course he’s fucking here,” Dex snaps at him, tired and vicious. He’s slumped in a chair, scowling at everything. “Don’t be stupid, Chowder, leave him the fuck alone.”

 

“What?” Chowder says back--Jack has to admit, stupidly. “It’s a long drive, he’s got an _NHL_ game tomorrow--“

 

“Yeah, but it’s fucking _Bitty,”_ Dex bites. _“_ And he’s _fucking_ Bitty, of course he fucking came--“

 

Chill, calm Nursey puts a hand on Dex’s shoulder and draws him back slowly, which is new. Maybe--Jack doesn’t really pay too much attention to frog interpersonal politics, even when it’s Bitty telling him about them. Old habits, and all that. “Cool it, guys,” Nursey says. “Jack, these idiots are sorry for being idiots. Shitty and Lardo and Rans and Hols went to get food. And the doctor wants to talk to you.” Jack nods, and Nursey nods back.

 

Jack notices the tadpoles are here, too, even though he can’t quite remember their names. Tango? Whiskey? The girl, he has no idea. Chevy? New manager, probably. All the guys, frogs and tadpoles, are sporting superficial face wounds, bruises and nicks. There must have been a fight on the ice. Jack’s sorry he wasn’t there to throw a few punches. The yellow cards would have been _well_ worth it.

 

He starts over towards the nurses’ station, but before he can get there, the door to the vending machine hallway opens, and the rest of his team emerges, laden down with candy bars and chip bags. Shitty passes his armful wordlessly to Lardo, steps forward, and yanks Jack into a hug. “Hey, buddy,” Shitty says. “Good to see you.”

 

Jack squeezes him back. “Hey, Shitty. Good to see you.”

 

The rest of them dump their plunder with the frogs and latch on to the outside of the hug. “This sucks,” Ransom says, his face pressed into Jack’s back. “Like, epically.”

 

“Understatement of the century,” Lardo says, from somewhere under Shitty’s elbow. “For fuck’s sake, Rans.”

 

“Cut him some slack,” Holster says over Shitty’s shoulder, glasses askew. “He’s not eloquent in stressful situations.”

 

Jack feels better, just a little. Then someone clears their throat, and says, “Mr. Zimmermann?” He lets go of his friends, and the doctor’s standing with a clipboard, waiting expectantly.

 

Back in manager mode, Lardo tucks herself under Jack’s arm for support and goes with him down the hall, to listen to what the doctor has to say. Jack’s more grateful than he’ll ever have the words to tell her, because ever since-- _well_ , ever since, he’s hated hospitals, hated the way everyone in them looks at you with badly-concealed pity and the way nothing smells like actual living _people,_ just the absence thereof.

 

The doctor tells them...nothing _too_ terrible. Jack has to focus on breathing through it, which means Lardo does all of the nodding and _uh-huh_ ing along, but that’s fine. That works. Jack still hears it all--bad concussion, will likely be disoriented for a couple of days, four broken ribs, cracked collarbone, twisted knee. All things considered, Mr. Bittle was very lucky. He won’t be playing any more this season, but he’ll walk up to get his diploma.

 

Would you like to sit with him? And Jack says, “Yeah, of course.”

 

5:37 AM

 

Jack’s blue Falconers fleece is balled up under Jack’s head on the bed in Bitty’s hospital room. The new manager, Ford, brought it in a while ago, after she went back to the rink for some things the guys left behind. It smells like them--like Jack and Bitty--and with his face pillowed on it, Jack can feel all but a few of those panicked butterflies retreat.

 

Bitty’s hooked in to a heart monitor, and Jack’s muscles loosen as he listens to the steady _blip_ -blip- _blip_ -blip of it. He reaches out a hand to run his fingers through Bitty’s hair again, rub his thumb over his cheek, under his closed eye.

 

He feels Bitty’s eyelashes flutter against his knuckle. He sits up, eyes trained on Bitty. He thinks he can see the life come back into him--or maybe that’s just the color, coming back into his cheeks.

 

Those beautiful eyes open, and for a moment, they’re unfocused. Jack’s stomach drops out--what if Bitty’s looking for his parents?--but then Bitty blinks, and his eyes clear, and he says, “Jack?”

 

Jack surges up and out of his chair, onto the bed, so he can lean over Bitty. He feels Bitty’s hands in his shirt, the same t-shirt he woke up in however many hours ago, and he smiles a weak, helpless smile. “Hey, Bits.” He holds Bitty’s face gently, careful of his concussion, and presses a kiss to his forehead, his nose, his mouth, his mouth, his mouth, his mouth again, until he feels Bitty smile groggily under his lips. “ _Merde_ , you scared me.”

 

“ _I_ scared you?” Bitty repeats incredulously, voice raspy. “Honey, I think the blame for _that_ offense lies with Quinnipiac.”

 

Jack just _hmms_ and buries his face in the curve where Bitty’s thin neck meets his shoulder, still unable to hold him close like he wants to, with the broken _everything_. “By the way,” Bitty says, “that does _not_ count as me fainting. I did _not_ faint during that check.”

 

Jack chuckles, a little watery, and pulls back to look at him. “If you say so, Bits.”

 

“Oh, I say so,” Bitty declares. His eyes go quiet, and he reaces up to push the hair out of Jack’s face. “You look like shit, honey. And I really do mean that in the best way, you know. You look like you need a pie.”

 

Jack smiles like a dope. He wants to say _marry me_ , but he also doesn’t want to freak Bitty out, so he says, “Yeah.”

 

Bitty laughs lightly, and winces a bit when that jostles something. His heart monitor beeps out of time--Jack looks over at it with the panic butterflies back in full-force, but Bitty digs his fingers in behind Jack’s ear and tugs at him. “Jack,” he commands. “Look at me.”

 

Jack looks at him. Jack never wants to look at anything else, the rest of his life. Bitty pulls him down to press a kiss to his forehead, and says, “I love you, honey.”

 

“I love you,” Jack murmurs, and catches his mouth again. He doesn’t press, just holds there, their lips together, their hands anchored to each other, and Jack doesn’t think about hockey at all.

 

At least not until the door opens, and the rest of the Samwell men’s hockey team crowds inside, marked up with battle bruises and spiriting more than a couple flasks, most of them still in their long underwear from the game. Bitty coos at all of them, and the frogs call him _captain_ , and even Dex smiles a little bit. Shitty takes one of the chairs and pulls Lardo down into his lap, Ransom and Holster dump Nursey and Chowder out of two of the chairs to take them for themselves, Tango and Whiskey both hang back, looking vaguely uncomfortable but happy to be here, Ford pushes both of them forward to tell Bitty _glad you’re okay,_ and Bitty glows, and Jack--

 

Jack feels warm.

**Author's Note:**

> full title: qu'est-ce que tu fait en hiver


End file.
